UV

touchy touchy, was just thinking out loud about an idea that occurred to me like they way you discredit it with no supporting evidence whatsoever though by saying it's "daft", as good as my "applecart" one that What supporting evidence do I need other than to show that the idea is untenable, unworkable and unproductive? There's been no club to ever even try to employ a strategy like that and for good reason. It just wouldn't work long term, it would cripple them financially and in the transfer market, the odds of success are roughly zero. And that applecart bit is just more of the same I see on this board from people all too eager to accept any crackpot theory about Ashley as being equally as likely as any other just because hes a "maverick" in the business world. You didn't "show" anything actually, you just wrote what you think would happen, which if it were true would also apply to Bosmans.

You can't say things like that. We're all just waiting for the big transfer dam to burst. Domino effect, etc. If you lot would only sell Barry to the scousers it would all fall into place.

Completely agree with that summation of the current situation of the European contenders mentioned and us.

But we've already got Mark Viduka. Ouch! But seriously, he may have been a bit too influential, he may have been played a bit too much and a bit longer than he should have, but anyone who thinks signing Shearer was a bad idea, or that Shearer was bad for NUFC is simply beyond the realms of ridicule.

Owen was 25, Emre was 24 & only £3.8m, and Duff was 27 and only £5m. Don't let that get in the way of your argument though. They have all had their best years behind them though and considering what they've done here they have been "relatively expensive". Best years behind you at 24/25. It really is a young man's game. Better get rid of Gutierrez in January then, he's already way over the hill. How old's Coloccini btw?

Owen was 25, Emre was 24 & only £3.8m, and Duff was 27 and only £5m. Don't let that get in the way of your argument though.

Trophy signing.

This reminds me of the Luque transfer. We offered £9.5m, they said they wanted £11m. The deal stalled for a couple of weeks in which time the message board went mad with people saying how class Luque was, how he was a bargain, how stingy Shepherd was, and how we should just pay the extra. I specifically remember macbeth even started a thread saying if only we hadn't payed out dividends that year we'd be able to afford him. Then in the end they backed down and we payed them the £9.5m. If all this isn't just bollocks, and we're the only ones interested at that price, then the same will probably happen again. Not comparing the player to Luque btw.

I don't like the ruling personally, I think it will cause an even greater inflation in player wages, but I have no problems with the club exploiting it as long as we're doing it by the rules. In a couple of years time it will be commonplace and everyone will be doing it. I'm actually quite surprised there weren't more around this year. There's talk of £30m for Berbatov now, but at the end of the year he could buy out his contract for what, £3m, and then hawk himself around to the highest bidder.

To use a currently popular argument: If Bowyer & Milner had cost £10m each would people have been happy then?

you're allowed to cancel your contract if you're of a certain age, have fulfilled part of your contract, and hand your notice in within 15 days of the end of the season, which is what Jonas did. You're allowed to do it, yes, but you're doing it "without just cause".

As I understand it - and I don't pretend to be an expert - "without just cause" is doing what Webster & Gutierrez did, and just say they want to cancel their contract without any reason. I'd rather we weren't the guinea pigs and possibly have our transfer dealings halted while the case was tried tbh. If there was any evidence whatsoever that we did contact Gutierrez before he terminated his contract, then Mallorca could either try to have us punished under the rules of FIFA, or do what the moral guardians of us all Spurs do and blackmail us for money instead of giving the evidence to FIFA.

Some light reading: http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/117623_43278.pdf

Serious question and don't get me wrong, this is not at all to say I would have been happier if we would have paid 8 or 10 million for Gutierrez, but have you considered we may have targeted Jonas BECAUSE we could attract him on a bargain, rather than despite this fact? Personally I can imagine the club looking at the Webster ruling and sounding out potential targets who were eligible to move due to this new regulation, which is good business sense of course if (and only if) the player is of the required quality and deserves to be applauded if (and only if) it means the money available for transfers goes towards other (squad and first team) signings we desperately need. Ultimately it is about making the money available go as far as you can, and to that effect there is nothing wrong with a bargain or two, but the real question here is whether enough money has been/is being made available to strengthen the squad to the level required to realise the club's ambitions. I don't think Keegan would accept being told who he could or couldn't sign. Yes Kev, of course we tried REEEEALY hard to sign Modric. Pulled out all the stops. You know what Chrisy said. Spurs Now... about this Gutierrez lad... Me & Jimmy think he's brill. We can just get him in for cover, then we're defo going for that Aimar geezer you want.

Serious question and don't get me wrong, this is not at all to say I would have been happier if we would have paid 8 or 10 million for Gutierrez, but have you considered we may have targeted Jonas BECAUSE we could attract him on a bargain, rather than despite this fact? Personally I can imagine the club looking at the Webster ruling and sounding out potential targets who were eligible to move due to this new regulation, which is good business sense of course if (and only if) the player is of the required quality and deserves to be applauded if (and only if) it means the money available for transfers goes towards other (squad and first team) signings we desperately need. Ultimately it is about making the money available go as far as you can, and to that effect there is nothing wrong with a bargain or two, but the real question here is whether enough money has been/is being made available to strengthen the squad to the level required to realise the club's ambitions. If you're suggesting we were tapping them up before they handed their notice in I hope you're wrong. There are pretty serious consequences for that kind of thing in this situation, and I'm not talking about a couple of million quid donation to a charity. I wouldn't want us to be the ones to test the water. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be that stupid. Agree with the rest of it. If there's money left over because we've bought some bargains, then there's no reason why we have to wait a season to see if these bargains come good when we could additionally bring in a new quality striker for example and hopefully speed up the process of getting back up the table. Within reason of course, I'm not a fan of making too many changes to a squad at a time, and they'd have to be a player Keegan wants too, I'm not at all suggesting buying for buying's sake.

If Gerrard stays fit & on form, then I see Liverpool doing similar to last season and coming 3rd or 4th depending on how Arsenal do. If not, I think someone in the chasing pack will beat them to the CL places.

Would you say the same if it was a member of your family he had assaulted? And at what point do you draw the line before you say someone shouldn't being wearing a black and white strip? Obviously assault is okay with you, but what about rape or murder? I'd take the piss out of him for getting what you'd expect from winding up a bit of a nutter, and then be dead jealous as he collected his massive damages windfall. Celebrity baiting is probably a very lucrative career.

I'm not going to even bother correcting all the bollocks in that post, I'll just ask if you are so concerned about not spending money before you get it, will you be happier if Ashley collects 3 years advance season ticket money and doesn't spend it?

If Gutierrez is any good (I have no idea), then he will probably be a good value signing (we have no idea how much of a signing on bonus we're giving him, or the wages he's on so how can we really judge). Ditto Guthrie. Two swallows though... We aren't the only club looking for good deals, and wont be the only club to pick up a couple of cheap players who turn out to be bargains (whisper it, but we've done it in the past too!). Other clubs will be doing that AS WELL AS spending transfer fees and wages on players with established and proven ability. Honest question to you or anyone else - do you think Gutierrez and/or Guthrie were signed instead of Modric? I ask because we've gone from being willing to spend £18m on an attacking midfielder (so obviously we thought the position needed filling) to our most important positions now being 2 fullbacks (I would assume cover for Beye but maybe more experienced competition for Enrique).

Er what myth is this? Show me one person who has ever said that. PLEASE don't tell me you're equating £10m 10 years ago to £10m in today's premiership.

In 06-07 only two clubs spent more than us and we finished 13th. It's good this game. Not sure if you missed it, but we had one or two injuries that season. How anyone can pretend the unprecedented bad fortune we had that season didn't affect our league position is beyond me, yet of course we apparently improved on that last season even though we finished with the same points and a considerably worse goal difference.

I don't think anyone's said it was an extra £40m have they? Of course you have to filter in the increased wages of the expensive new players your bringing in too. The table just shows that there is a lot more money floating about, but we seem to be decreasing the amount we spend in transfers and wages. I like how you picked a promoted team - the only one to stay up - who finished only 4 points below us as an example of a team which spent money poorly. You could just as easily take the spending of Man City, Pompey, Everton or Spurs over the last few years to show what spending a bit of cash can do for you (almost immediately in City's case - did no-one tell them they've got to take 4-5 years?). I'll get a "LOL Spuds only finished 2 places above us!!!!" in before anyone else, but they'll be a lot more than 2 places above us next season if we go into the season with anything like the midfield & attack we have now, I'll put money on that. It's not a case of spend big one season and hey presto instant success (although it can happen), but if you let the spending drop below other's over a number of seasons, unless you have a Wenger type figure finding new talent, your squad is inevitably going to drop further and further behind the other clubs in quality, and it's going to become harder and harder to compete no matter who the manager is. It seems to me like some are happy to believe that Wise & Veterre will be a match for Wenger, and that constitutes a great leap forward in how the club is being run. Maybe they will be, but personally I'd like us to continue to compete in the transfer market and hence hopefully on the pitch until the fruits of their labour are ready to prove themselves.

dave do you really need this explaining? a club our size has much bigger income from ST sales, shirt sales, corporates & sponsorships etc... than the fulhams of this world therefore the 30-50m they receive needs to be used to mask the defecit, with us it does not - we've got the 5th biggest turnover in the league haven't we? are we 5th biggest spenders in the last year? are we f*** as other people say the club doesn't need to be 100% debt free, it just doesn't have to be riddled with it to the point of being totally f***ed again i'll ask for a straight answer from you or anyone else; lets say TV money is 40m a season - that means "ashley" will get 80m for last season and this one coming regardless of when it's paid... why are you accepting this money not being reinvested in the playing squad? or if not that money then the ST money, or sponsorship money? or any money? are you saying to me the club has to be self sufficient from the moment ashley bought it? why? why couldn't he invest some of the money based on future guaranteed income (the TV deal is over a fixed period so they know what they're getting and for how long)? we're not talking 100m here dave but what's been invested in the last year is a f***ing joke and you know it is I've no idea why that money isn't going straight back into transfers. Perhaps it's gone directly towards our monstrously huge wage bill (which WAS fifth highest in the league from what I remember the last reports saying). It's a fair question, but if it's that simple, why hasn't every other Premier League club spent £80m on transfers in that last two years? What are they doing with it? There must be a reason why hardly anyone has used this amazing new 'free' revenue directly on transfers. As I keep pointing out though, NOBODY was complaining at the net spend on September 1st 2007. Nobody. Personally I'm glad they didn't give that useless t*** Allardyce any more money than they did. If only we'd bought Gutierrez the normal way. A lot of clubs did spend significantly more in the last year or two, and has been pointed out before have already broken their transfer records this season. http://www.purelymancity.com/wp-content/5yearspendingcomparison.jpg PS Dave, there's a poster a couple of posts back who's adding the alleged amounts we bid fo Aimar and Coloccini to the amount Ashley's willing to spend. Hadn't you better stomp on him for believing what suits him from the press.

Are you claiming that the club's policy is to purchase players based on VFM regardless of the positions which the manager thinks are the most in need of improvement? I'd hope that wasn't the case. Would also be a bit of an indictment of this great new scouting structure that's been put in place if the the only available person on the list at that level of ability was Modric.

He might have got away with it, but I know exactly what happened and believe you me, he was far from innocent. Why didn't you try to stop it?